Monday, April 18, 2016

I think it's fair to say that Kenta Maeda has exceeded expectations. In his third outing as a Dodger he finally gave up his first run in the Majors on a third inning homer by Joe Panik. A string of fourteen scoreless innings to start his career is now over - having been the first to do it for the Dodgers since Pedro Astacio in 1992. As for the aftermath, Maeda continued to shut down the opposition. He went seven innings, allowed only four hits, struck out seven and gave up a lone run. Via Eric Stephen at True Blue LA:

"He was terrible tonight. He gave up a run," pitching coach Rick Honeycutt joked. "He's not human."

Maeda has been so good, as noted by Jon Weisman on twitter, that he is the first Dodger to begin his career with three straight games of six innings and one run or fewer allowed. In fact, many folks are openly saying, "Greinke, who?" Per Mark Simon at ESPN:

Much like former Dodgers pitcher Zack Greinke, Maeda is excelling by keeping his pitches away from opposing hitters.

Maeda has kept nearly 75 percent of his pitches on the outer half of the plate or off the outside corner. That’s the highest such rate by any starting pitcher this season and a near match for Greinke’s rate last season, which was second among ERA-title qualifiers.

Ryu's rehab has hit a snag. He is now suffering from a groin strain. Via Dan Arritt at ESPN, "Dodgers left with questions after latest Hyun-Jin Ryu setback."

“We’re going to take a couple days to kind of let this calm down and
then get him back on the mound,” Roberts said. “I think the whole time
we thought we were going to have him back sooner, but then there’s a
setback in the middle of spring and then with this. Technically it’s a
setback, and I don’t know how severe the injury is."

"They're throwing the ball well," Roberts said after Saturday's 4-3
loss, in which the bullpen threw five scoreless frames. "It's something
I've said all along, that I have confidence in them. You got to keep
putting them in that situation and they're responding."

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